Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations

Political Perspectives: Pleas For Truth Talk Regarding Graham-Cassidy; Does Panic On Left Suggest Progress On Right?

Opinion writers express outrage at the contents of the Senate GOP's latest attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare and explore the political motivations for pursuing the measure's passage.

The New York Times:
Senator Cassidy, Please Stop Lying About Health Care
Here’s a giveway about how bad the new Senate health care bill is: Bill Cassidy, one of its authors, keeps trying to sell it by telling untruths. “The relatively new phenomenon of just ‘up is down’ lying about your bill’s impacts is jarring,” says Loren Adler of the USC-Brookings-Schaeffer Initiative on Health Policy. Most egregiously, Cassidy is claiming that the bill would not ultimately deprive sick people of health insurance. That’s false, as NPR calmly explained when Cassidy said otherwise. (David Leonhardt, 9/21)

The Wall Street Journal:
The Panic Over Graham-Cassidy
Senate Republicans must be making progress on their latest attempt to reform health care, because the opposition is again reaching jet-aircraft decibel levels of outrage. The debate could use a few facts—not least on the claims that the GOP is engaging in an unfair process. Republicans are scrambling to pass Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy’s health-care bill before Sept. 30, when the clock expires on the budget procedure that allows the Senate to pass legislation with 51 votes. The bill would devolve ObamaCare funding to the states, which could seek waivers from the feds to experiment within certain regulatory boundaries, and it also repeals the individual and employer mandates and medical-device tax. (9/21)

The New York Times:
Cruelty, Incompetence And Lies
Graham-Cassidy, the health bill the Senate may vote on next week, is stunningly cruel. It’s also incompetently drafted: The bill’s sponsors clearly had no idea what they were doing when they put it together. Furthermore, their efforts to sell the bill involve obvious, blatant lies.Nonetheless, the bill could pass. And that says a lot about today’s Republican Party, none of it good. (Paul Krugman, 9/22)

The Washington Post:
This Republican Health-Care Bill Is The Most Monstrous Yet
Motivated by the cynical aims of fulfilling a bumper-sticker campaign promise and lavishing tax cuts on the wealthy, Republicans are threatening to pass a health-care bill they know will make millions of Americans sicker and poorer. Do they think we don’t see what they’re doing? Does Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) think we didn’t hear what he said Wednesday? “You know, I could maybe give you 10 reasons why this bill shouldn’t be considered,” he told reporters. “But Republicans campaigned on this so often that you have a responsibility to carry out what you said in the campaign. That’s pretty much as much of a reason as the substance of the bill.” (Eugene Robinson, 9/21)

The Wall Street Journal:
The Graham-Cassidy Show Is Like ‘Jaws’—And You’re The Swimmer
If you’ve been following the congressional health-care “debate”—an overly kind word, to be sure—you may now be getting an eerie feeling. It’s sort of like “Jaws.” You thought it was safe to go back into the health-care waters. The poor and the powerless seemed to be out of harm’s way. Sens. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D., Wash.) were reporting progress on a bipartisan compromise. Then the Graham-Cassidy bill came out of nowhere, like a great white shark, accompanied by a bit of ominous music. (Alan S. Blinder, 9/21)

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